CK2 - Starting king died. Son I as TRYING to get to inherit Italy died without children. Current character has no children, although I have a cousin as an heir. Current character married some English broad that's involved in a civil war and just started a faction or something. I don't have the military base to do much right now because none of my vassals really like me.

Also I had some minor rebellion occur. Beat the dude, revoked his vassalage, and sent him packing.

Maybe I should try out Vicky 2. The expansions are on sale his week. Vicky 2 is harder than CK2 I imagine though

Xenodad - Up to prisonp islenk.

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

Just beat the first boss in Rune Factory 4 and I am not at all disappointed despite how hyped I was for this game. It's miles better than Tides of Destiny, and even an improvement over Rune Factory 3. First and foremost, farming is actually farming akin to Harvest Moon and, unlike 3, is actually pretty useful. Not only can you grow veggies for a decent profit, but you can sometimes grow equipment and even dungeon entrances. I've only played the first week of the game and I can already tell that XSEED wasn't kidding when they said this game was packed to the gills with content. All the characters are at least as interesting as those in RF3, and I honestly have no idea who I'm going to pursue romantically 'cause they all have interesting personalities. Finally, if the first dungeon was any indication, the layout and gameplay of dungeons isn't a huge leap forward, but the designs don't feel nearly as repetitive or copy/paste room to room.

Just beat the first boss in Rune Factory 4 and I am not at all disappointed despite how hyped I was for this game. It's miles better than Tides of Destiny, and even an improvement over Rune Factory 3. First and foremost, farming is actually farming akin to Harvest Moon and, unlike 3, is actually pretty useful. Not only can you grow veggies for a decent profit, but you can sometimes grow equipment and even dungeon entrances. I've only played the first week of the game and I can already tell that XSEED wasn't kidding when they said this game was packed to the gills with content. All the characters are at least as interesting as those in RF3, and I honestly have no idea who I'm going to pursue romantically 'cause they all have interesting personalities. Finally, if the first dungeon was any indication, the layout and gameplay of dungeons isn't a huge leap forward, but the designs don't feel nearly as repetitive or copy/paste room to room.

Waiting for my copy to come in the mail tomorrow. I'm glad their pushing this game back was worth it then! :)

Still enjoying Bioshock Infinite. Considering bumping up the difficulty, though, as Easy is TOO easy. Elizabeth is pretty cool so far, although I didn't expect her to be so young. The promo art made her look older. The voice of the Prophet(Comstock) sounds SO familiar. Like Jeff Bridges or someone like him. *checks IMDB*Some dude named Kiff VandenHeuvel. Weird name. Never heard of him.

R-Type - Did I mention I got to Level 4 by getting the battleship to time out? Anyway.

CK2 - Fucked up and got annexed by Byzantium. I WAS trying to iron man this but yeah that ain't happening now.

Xenoblade - Finished the prison island stuff. Sort of dissapointed that I didn't get some lengthy and pointless fetch quest to go spread diplomacy to the Homs and Nopon colonies, at which point I realized I could still go back there anyway.

And probably need to because I've barely touched Colony 6, and haven't done any gem crafting at all.

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Also Metal Face IS Mumkhar, right? I mean I've kind of been assuming so since forever because it's that obvious and I think Dudeman just confirmed it but...

Xenoblade - Finished the prison island stuff. Sort of dissapointed that I didn't get some lengthy and pointless fetch quest to go spread diplomacy to the Homs and Nopon colonies, at which point I realized I could still go back there anyway.

And probably need to because I've barely touched Colony 6, and haven't done any gem crafting at all.

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Also Metal Face IS Mumkhar, right? I mean I've kind of been assuming so since forever because it's that obvious and I think Dudeman just confirmed it but...

Code:

Yes. He's been robotized by Dr. Robotnik and piloting a giant robot, but yes that's the guy.

As for Gem Crafting, there's still the Gem Man's Stall in Colony 9 if you want to work on gems there, and you can get a portable gem maker (if you don't already have it) by raising all of Colony 6 up to level 1.

For making gems themselves, here's the essentials:

-First. Don't bother until you start acquiring level 3 Crystals (not gems but the material needed to make gems). Before that, you'd get better mileage just by trading for gems. Plus you won't have strong enough relationships ready to effectively make any gems (better relationships = more turns per session). Where you are in the game right now is about where I would start considering making gems; maybe a little later if you haven't been doing as many quests.

-Second. The above doesn't apply to Quick Step, Agility, and Spike Defense gems. Quick Step can up your movement speed by up to 25% of your normal movement speed which makes traveling easier overall (and you do a lot of traveling). Agility is the God Stat as it determines your chances to both hit and dodge and a few extra points could mean the difference of several levels of effectiveness (50 is the maximum you can raise Agility via gems). And Spike Defense is really useful to have on hand if you don't want to play Topple games or use Shulk/Melia (or at least, playing Melia as anything other than a certain magical railgun or DoT queen).

-Third. The main benefit for making gems is to have the highest quality gems above the level you'd commonly see crystals and cylinders at, as the differences between levels could mean the difference of fighting enemies a couple levels above you rather than enemies at the same level or lower. The real difference however won't be seen until you start making the highest level gems as they are a massive step up in quality. Looking at gems of a basic stat such as Strength is the easiest way to show the differences crafted gems make versus gems found on equipment or rewarded for collectipedia and quest completion.

At level 1: Strength gems will increase the appropriate stat by anywhere between 5-10 points.At level 2: Strength gems will increase the appropriate stat by anywhere between 15-20 points.At level 3: Strength gems will increase the appropriate stat by anywhere between 25-30 points.At level 4: Strength gems will increase the appropriate stat by anywhere between 35-40 points.At level 5: Strength gems will increase the appropriate stat by anywhere between 45-50 points.And at level 6: Strength gems will increase the appropriate stat by anywhere between 75-100 points.

In many cases, a maxed out level 6 gem will max out the particular stat/boost/effect that said particular can be raised.

To actually make gems, first you need to choose the level of material (i.e. Crystals and Cylinders) you'll be working with, then you need to choose to combine two or more materials until you've either combining 8 separate materials or any of the materials' qualities surpass 100%, and finally you need to choose your shooter and your engineer based upon the type of flame you want from your engineer, the bonus you want from your shooter, and the level of their relationship together.

For making maximized gems, you'll want to craft gems to above 300% quality (which is denoted by the MEGA HEAT status). You will get two gems one tier above the material you started with and set to their maximum possible value. Strong Flames are the best type of flame to do this with as well as starting with an already high quality % (with Reyn as the engineer and either Shulk or Dunban as the shooter with maximum relation with each other will be able to consistently reach MEGA HEAT status starting with only 140% in a single quality).

However, most crystals will not make reaching MEGA HEAT status easy since they usually come with two or more qualities per crystal and often times, the more desirable quality being the lower percentage of the two (although sometimes they'll be the higher of the two). In order to access those qualities without accidentally making inferior gems out of them, you'll need to separate and refine the qualities into separate cylinders.

For making cylinders, you'll want to work with many qualities and to use Gentle Flames to boost the green Cylinder Gauge (Riki and Shulk are good engineers for making cylinders with Sharla, Dunban, and Seven being the best shooters for the job). Each time the gauge fills, you can convert one more quality into a cylinder. Additionally, you can game the process to either raise a cylinder's quality as close to 99% as it can go without going over or you can convert higher value qualities into cylinders by stuffing the process with as many qualities as you might care for, making sure that the two highest qualities are expendable ones so that unintended boosts don't push the desired quality above 99%.

As for the miscellaneous stuffs, Fever is a rare circumstance where a particular flame will trigger multiple times for a single turn, Riki's shooter ability means that you double the number of turns to work with but at half the effect of each turn making the outcome more of a straight average than otherwise, Friendship bonuses can also trigger depending on the current relationship levels between the crafting duo and the rest of the team with the boost reflecting that character's specialty (though you can only get one from each character per run for both good and ill; Friendship bonuses can fuck up cylinder creation since they're pretty large), and Medium Flames are only really good for rare cases when crystals come with multiple desirable qualities at 90+% (usually gotten from ether deposits) in which case merging two of those could possibly lead to multiple qualities HEATing or MEGA HEATing all at once (provided you trigger at least one or two Fevers, even if the best Medium Flame combination can't link to Shulk's improved Fever odds skill).

Hopefully, this will cover it. (And honestly, outside of postgame content and the gems covered in the second pointer, you're probably better off not bothering since having good gems goes along way to reducing the challenge you might otherwise face at your level).

Had an amazing night with Hatsune Miku yesterday (teehee). Got 2 Easy perfects, including Weekender Girl which somehow had me stuck for a week, a Normal Perfect, my first Excellent in hard mode, and cleared the first song in Extreme.

Best game (not to be confused with a "interactive narrative experience") I've played this year. Like I've said before in this thread Puppeteer is a creative, charming and clever little game that everyone with a PS3 should give a chance. I really hope this sells decently, the people behind this game deserves all the support it can get.

Played some more SMTIV. Made it to Ikebukuro's terminal and am now dicking around with sidequests (I'm pretty sure I'm on team Chaos right now as well given 'recent' choices). Looks like I can use the tourney sidequest chain to adjust my alignment later on if I need to.